


Dum spiro, spero.

by AbsinthiumsPen



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gladiators, Alternate Universe - Historical, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Romance, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 08:17:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4869788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbsinthiumsPen/pseuds/AbsinthiumsPen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As long as he was breathing, there was still hope.<br/>He would come for him, rescue him just like he did so many months ago in the arena.<br/>So he sent a silent prayer to the Gods, hoping that they would listen once again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dum spiro, spero.

**Author's Note:**

> This work is my contrubution to day five of the Gobblepot Week 2015, Alternate Universe.  
> The gladiator AU is inspired by gobblepot-art-and-ask-blog's beautiful artwork and decated to Selene and the creative anon who but the gladiator idea in her head.  
> http://gobblepot-art-and-ask-blog.tumblr.com/post/127570655788/gobblepot-nsfw-oh-dear-godsits-you-of

Slowly, the veil of haze lifted and gave way to an unsettling view.  
The scene which greeted him made Oswald feel highly uneasy.  
The sandy yard in front of him was littered with the mangled corpses of a dozen people he had once known. Some fellow patricians, some familiar plebeians and some just poor innocent servants or household slaves. The off-white fabrics of their tunics were soaked in blood, the small gladii some of them tried to protect themselves with against the superior attackers, lay scattered in the sand like discarded toy swords.  
He tried desperately to remember what had happened and after battling the headache and nausea which were threatening to overcome him, he could assemble the fragments of his memory. 

The Falcone familia had fallen, just like so many other great patrician familiae in the course of the past weeks. Slave uprisings had led the familiae to fall to their ruin, after the first ludus had been taken over by the gladiator slaves, riots had spread like wildfire through the city. Not being able to take sufficient precautions or make any useful escape plans, Oswald had witnessed anarchy reign the city, silently waiting for the impending doom. Last night it finally happened, Falcone’s gladiators turned against their masters, killed him and most of the other members of his familia. 

Why he was still alive though, he could not tell.  
He noticed with discomfort that his wrists were tied behind his back, the wool of his toga soaked with blood that was, at least to some extent, his own. Whatever might happen to him, his mind was put at ease by the knowledge that his mother was kept safe. He had convinced her to retreat to their country villa, a remote and safe spot a few hours away from the city. The thought made him shift uneasily though, what would she do without her son and her familia? Her mind was fragile enough in times of peace, Oswald was sure her mental health would only deteriorate once the news of her loved ones’ deaths reached her. 

What was he thinking, he was not dead, yet. There was still hope. 

Carefully he tried to shift his hands to wriggle himself out of his bonds.  
It took him a few minutes, his wrists hurting badly due to the friction, his heart pounding in his chest out of fear his captors might come back before he could free himself. Slowly, another nagging thought was taking shape in his mind, shutting out all the worries about his current state, breaking his concentration and making him clench his teeth in a desperate attempt not to give in to despair. 

He barely knew any of his uncle’s slaves, at least not the gladiators the patriarch had bought a few months ago. Barely knew any of them but one. It had all started while he was watching their training sessions out of mere curiosity. One of the foreign men had tickled his fancy. Jim, a stern blonde with soft dark blue eyes, who had been a soldier before being captured by Roman forces.  
By coincidence they got to know each other, talked whenever no one would notice, until one day Jim prevented Oswald from a little accident and they ended up in each other’s arms, the gladiator drawing the younger patrician into a gentle kiss.  
Their affair had not gone unnoticed by the other members of their household. Though Oswald was mocked for being a cinaedus, obviously not proving his virility by letting a slave dominate him, the two were mostly ignored and their relationship more or less tolerated. 

That was until the first games approached and Jim had to participate and fight for his survival with Oswald having no choice but to pray to the Gods for his lover’s wellbeing. He could not by any means sway his uncle to spare the formidable and handsome fighter from entering the arena. At first, the odds had been in favor of the blonde gladiator, but his luck turned towards the end of the match. Oswald just remembered falling onto his knees in front of his uncle to beg him to put Jim’s life to the vote instead of ordering his opponent to kill him straight away. His tears had convinced the pater to give Jim one last chance and to their relief, the crowd cheered for the defeated. Despite ultimately loosing the match, he had fought honorably and skillfully, successfully entertaining the spectators who fortunately decided to show mercy.  
After the games, Oswald had run to the cells and devotedly tended to Jim’s wounds and bruises. 

Ferocious shouts caused Oswald to jolt out of his thoughts. One of his hands was free, the other was still tied to the marble pillar behind him. Panicking, he pulled at his bonds until his wrist was bleeding, but to no avail. The voices were coming closer, until two brawny men in leather armor appeared in the yard, quickly approaching the trembling patrician. Their faces looked grim and contorted into rather hideous smiles.

“We’re gonna make an example of you, little prince.” One of the men said grinning and bowed down to undo Oswald’s ties. 

So that was why they had let him live. To show the other citizens what they were capable of doing with a former master. 

“But first let’s have some fun with the little pullus.”  
If the first man’s words had not inspired utter terror in him, the other man’s surely did. 

Was this how the last hours of his life would look like?  
Being forced to serve some rogue gladiator’s pleasure and then being executed in front of a bloodthirsty crowd? 

The feeling of terror was joined by red hot anger that flared up in his gut. If he was about to go down then at least it would not be pleasurable for his carnifices. When the second man turned him around and pushed his upper body down to face the dusty soil underneath, he was lucky enough to get hold of his captor’s hand with his teeth and viciously bit into it. The man wailed and punched him hard which only caused Oswald to bite down harder and tear the attacker’s flesh.

“Get him off of me!” He screamed, but his partner did not react. 

Instead, the other gladiator slowly dropped to the ground, gurgling. His throat had been cut by a third man whose blonde hair was covered in blood and dust, fresh cuts and bruises all over his body from fending off the other rioters on his way.

When Oswald noticed Jim’s arrival, he let go of the man’s hand and stumbled backwards, vigorously shaking his head, tears welling up. 

“Oh dear Gods… it’s you.” He was beyond relieved to see his friend and lover, but the injuries he spotted, scared him and the remaining rogue was still standing despite the mangled hand. 

“Of course it’s me.” Jim managed to smile for a second, and then readied himself to fight the remaining gladiator. 

Grasping for his gladius with the other hand, the rogue lashed out at Jim and soon the two men were enmeshed in a desperate fight for survival. At first, it seemed Jim was at a disadvantage, having fought all the other men on his way to the yard, but after a while, his opponent was tired out for he was quickly loosing blood from the deep flesh wound in his hand. 

Breathing heavily and praying to the Gods for his lover’s victory once again, Oswald crouched behind the pillar he had been tied to minutes before. Still, the rogue did not give up and was lashing out now like a cornered animal, when Oswald noticed the dead fighter’s gladius lying on the ground just a step away from him. With shaking hands, he took it, dashed forward and buried it in their adversary’s back. Before he could react and turn around, Jim had used the moment of surprise to his advantage and stabbed his own gladius into the man’s gut which cause him to topple down onto the sand unmoving. 

Slowly, Jim fell down on his knees, panting heavily. The fights had obviously worn him out and he himself was bleeding from the cuts that covered his skin in so many places. Oswald went down in front of him, clutching the blonde’s head in his hands, showering him with soft kisses.

“I’m so glad you came…” His voice was stifled by tears and he gently rested his forehead against Jim’s.

It took the gladiator a while to catch his breath until his lips turned into a weary smile and finally he met Oswald’s gaze.  
“Of course I did… I could not leave you to die.”

**Author's Note:**

> The story is set vaguely between 100 and 70 BC in the Roman Republic. I'm not expert on ancient Roman history, but I tried my best to make the setting at least believable.  
> I decided against changing the characters' names into something befitting the scenario.
> 
> Here is a list of the Latin words I used:  
> gladius (pl. gladii) - roman dagger  
> familia (pl. familiae) - roman household  
> ludus (pl. ludi) - gladiator school  
> cinaedus - a man who is in most cases androgynous and the recieving part in a homosexual relationship, it's hard to translate  
> pater - the head of a familia  
> pullus - "chick", ususally a cinaedus, man who still looks boyish and handsome, in some context a bit like a "boy toy"  
> carnifex (pl. carnifices) - hangman, executioner
> 
> If you are interested in the time and setting, I can recommend the Wikipedia articles on ancient Rome, the Roman Republic and Homosexuality in ancient Rome. :)


End file.
